


The Warmth of your Doorstep

by discosludge



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, canon compliant but I played with a few scenes obviously, original courier, the courier and boone are both Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-06-20 22:23:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15543420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discosludge/pseuds/discosludge
Summary: The first time he touches her, it is when they are swirling in a haze of dust and gunfire.Going together, forward in the way that only two hurt people can. Slowly.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time he touches her, it is when they are swirling in a haze of dust and gunfire. He grabs her by the waist, one hand enough to occupy most of the space on her side, and drags her over toward cover, not too gently. Shay slams her back against the rock, Boone’s hand no longer on her. Her side is bleeding.

She looks at him, tries to find his eyes behind the sunglasses and can’t, before looking down at her wound. A bullet had nicked her right beneath her ribcage. Her armor had been torn, and the blood began to drip onto the ground.

“Boone,” Shay hears herself say, but the flurry of violence surrounding them stifles the sound of her voice. Somehow, despite it all, he hears her, and glances upwards so—she assumes—he can make eye contact.

“We need a stimpak,” It’s a demand, barked out in that combative voice of his. Shay nods gently, the pain spreading from her side upwards her body. She winces, and Boone searches her as if he’s searching a knapsack, rough and hurried.

“Where’s your pack?” He asks.

Shay looks down at herself, previously unaware that she had lost her pack somewhere in the fighting. There is a beat, heavy and still, before she answers.

“It’s out there somewhere,” Shay finally replies.

“Out where?” Boone is insistent in his tone, but Shay can’t shake the feeling that she is a punished child, and Boone her angry teacher.

“Out there,” Shays says as she musters a small shrug. It sends a ripple of pain up through her side and into her neck. To avoid Boone’s gaze, she looks down at her wound, only to realize that it was much worse than she had previously believed. A piece of bullet shrapnel was lodged in her, sharp and metal. It protruded ever so slightly, so that one might not see it upon first glance. Boone notices her looking down and he studies it once again too. Their realizations come at the same time.

“Jesus Shay,” Boone shakes his head. He grabs on to the tiny bit of shrapnel that is sticking out, and Shay grits her teeth. She can see the contemplation in his eyes—how easy it would be to just pull. The pain creeps into her mind, and she feels herself going hazy from loss of blood.

Screams from over the rock shake her out of her stupor, and Boone peeks up quickly to see the source. He places a hand over her mouth. She can taste the salt of his sweat on her lips, and the warmth radiating from him. Slowly crouching back down, he turns toward her with a finger on his lips—quiet. Shay doesn’t know what could possibly be out there, but the bullets slow down. She can hear bodies hitting the desert floor, each thump a small relief to her.

The bullets completely stop, and then she can finally hear it. Rattles like a baby’s toy fill the air with their vibrations. She can just barely make out muted footfalls—Nightstalkers. Boone quietly grabs his sniper. She wasn’t sure how many of them there were, but if Boone was confident he could take them all out, then Shay had to trust his instinct. Something gnawed her gut. In her mind, she sees an image of Boone rising from the rock, taking shots at the creatures, until they caught on and came to attack them. Shay couldn’t properly defend herself. The dizziness was making it difficult to see straight.

He rises, unloads a shot. She hears a body hit the ground, and then he takes another shot, another thump. There is a cacophony of hissing and rattling which makes Shay lean her head against her shoulder just to block out some of the noise. The sniper is loud, the creatures are louder. One by one they each thump to the ground, Boone disposing of them swiftly and efficiently.

Before Shay notices what’s going on, a small Nightstalker rounds the corner and heads towards her. Perhaps it smelled her blood, or perhaps it just saw its opportunity. Boone is preoccupied, shooting away at the others. The creature opens its jaw and hisses at Shay before quickly pouncing at her. Mustering up all of her strength, Shay winds her foot back and kicks it violently mid-jump.

“Boone!” She shouts, and Boone whirls around to face the creature. It recoils onto the ground, but rears back up for its next attack. Before the creature can step forward, its head explodes in a viscera. Blood spatters against Shay’s boots, and she doesn’t even have time to thank Boone before he is back to shooting once again.

Finally, after what seems like eons, the last Nightstalker falls. Boone rushes out and returns moments later with her pack. It’s a bit torn up, probably from the Nightstalkers’ curiosities, but for the most part it’s intact. She watches Boone swiftly find one of her stimpaks.

“Sorry,” Boone says. Shay doesn’t realize what he’s apologizing for until she realizes he is tearing her shirt along the area of the wound. She smiles.

“It’s okay,” Shay says. “Just stab me please.”

Boone injects the stimpak, and Shay can feel a wave of numbness and relief wash over her. She looks up at Boone’s face, knowing what must come next.

“Here,” He takes his beret off and holds it up to her mouth. “This’ll hurt.”

Shay nods and bites down on the beret.

She doesn’t watch when Boone takes out the shrapnel. She doesn’t need to. Stifling pain cascades through her, and she can feel her blood gush out of the wound. She screams into the beret and leans her head back. Anything to rid her of this awful, awful pain. The dizziness takes ahold and she has to shut her eyes. Boone’s hands cover the wound, applying some semblance of pressure onto her. She can feel him remove a hand and begin to wrap something around her midsection tightly. Her head feels too light, the pain too aggressive.

The last thing she hears before she loses consciousness is the sound of Boone’s breathing—sharp and steady.

                       

* * *

 

When Shay comes to, it’s night. The moon hangs low in the sky, and a fire crackles in front of her. Her head feels woozy and heavy, no doubt from all the meds she is probably on to deal with the pain. Looking across from her, she sees Boone lounging against a rock. His eyes, typically obscured with his sunglasses, are naked and reflect the warmth of the fire.

“Good morning,” She says, and it shakes him from his stupor.

“Shay,” Boone says quietly, so quietly she almost can’t hear it. “Don’t move.”

She obeys and watches as he gets up and walks over toward her. Each step seems deliberately slow, so as not to disturb her too much.

Finally, he reaches her, and she watches as he leans down and sits next to her. She is propped up against a rock, and their faces are level. She realizes, she’s probably never been this close to him before.

His hands work steadily as he grabs the canteen from his hip and holds it up to her, unscrewing the cap. He helps her drink, pours it into her mouth like she is an elderly woman without working hands. The water tastes good, despite its lukewarm temperature. Shay gulps it down, leaving only a little leftover for Boone. She clears her throat and looks at him.

“Thank you,” She says. “I mean, the bullet removal was incredibly painful and I almost died, but I guess I’m glad I’m not dead.”

He looks at her in disbelief. His eyes are so soft, she thinks.

“Really?” He asks. “Jokes?”

“I don’t know how else to interact with other humans,” Shay remarks. Her jokes never make him smile, but she thinks that there may be some small levity she brings to him, just maybe.

“If you hadn’t dragged me out of there, I probably would have gotten shot,” Shay says. “Again.”

“You need to pay better attention,” Boone chastises her, and she feels like a child again.

“Well, I’m not a retired first recon sniper,” Shay shrugs, and winces with the pain that comes along with it. “So, that’s not really my job, is it?”

“Yeah,” Boone closes off again, she can see it in the way his eyes squint, the way that she can tell he wants his glasses back on so he doesn’t have to look at her. “You’re welcome.”

She can tell that she’s touched a nerve. Something about the way she spoke or what she had said—it wasn’t the answer he was looking for. Nothing ever was. Shay looks down at her torso, which is now completely wrapped in gauze, and only now notices the blanket thrown over her shoulders. She imagines Boone doing all of these little things, wrapping her up, giving her warmth, giving her water. Guilt tingles in her gut.

“I really am grateful, Boone,” Shay says. She reaches out, almost as if to grab him, but lets her hand fall back toward the ground. “I hope I don’t seem otherwise.” He stares at her, stares at her limp hand on the ground.

“Get some rest,” He says. “We have to leave at sunrise.”


	2. Chapter 2

Shay takes a sip of whiskey. It slides down her throat, rough and sticky, and leaves a warm tingling in the pit of her belly. Her eyes set on the sky, the inky purples mixing with the cool grey of the clouds. Stars freckle in the sky. She could be alone, by herself, if she could just close her eyes.

“What are you gonna do when we get there?” Boone asks. She turns to look at him, his figure illuminated by the warm oranges and yellows of the fire. Something in the fire cracks, and it startles her. She has no reason to be on edge. They are alone, totally, and any threats were subject to ED-E’s attentive beeps.

“What do you mean?” Shay answers his question with a question.

“What are you looking for?” Boone asks. Shay chews on her bottom lip, runs her tongue over the cracks where she can taste the raw skin.

“I don’t know,” Shay responds. “Maybe I’ll figure it out when we get there.”

There were many ‘maybes’ that hung in the air. Maybe Shay would find out, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe they would die on the way there and nothing would matter anyways. Maybe the man in the checkered suit was already dead—killed in some family matter in the back of an old casino. She hated ‘maybes.’ They were half-assed—a feeble attempt at neutrality that typically ended up being a cop-out.

“And if you don’t?” he asks. Shay looks over at him. He’s all broad shoulders and unseen eyes—a cipher, despite their ongoing partnership.

“Take me out back, and shoot me in the head.” She jokes. “The end.”

He doesn't laugh, but he never does. Sometimes she thinks he tests her, teases a joke out of her in an attempt to figure her out. She thinks it’s only fair, what with how often she tried to get some kind of response out of him. Occasionally, she gets a rise out of him, a snap or a ‘shhhh’ but never a yell. Boone rarely raises his voice. He didn’t really need to as it was easy to convey your anger when you were literally always angry. She has watched him simmer before, bathing in the rage that accompanies the Legion trading parties they happen upon occasionally. When it happens, she can almost see it beneath the surface of his skin, a red-hot anger so quiet and so violent that it makes his jaw clench and his shoulders tighten.

She stares at the apathetic man across from her now, wondering how it could be the same person.

“We could make a suicide pact, shoot each other at the same time,” he says, and it’s almost too quiet to perceive. Shay blinks a few times, as if clearing her vision will help her understand what she just heard.

“That’s…that’s kind of funny, kind of not.” Shay responds. “Were you making a joke?”

“No.”

“Seems like that was kind of a joke,” she says. His head snaps over to her.

“It wasn’t a joke.” Boone says. “I was humoring you.”

“Yeah,” she says in a snide tone. “That’s a joke.”

“Everything’s a joke to you,” he shrugs and takes a sip from his canteen.

Shay silences for a moment, watching the way the water dribbles out on his chin a little, trickles down his adam’s apple, and disappears behind the collar of his shirt. She wonders, perhaps, where the water droplet will go next. Boone was not an unattractive man, but it was difficult to see past the beret and the sunglasses and the constant scowl—almost literally. She thinks maybe she can see what Carla saw, in a weird, strictly physical way. Boone was masculine, nearly to a fault, but his general lack of bravado and grandstanding is a salve amidst all the high rollers and Khans out in the Mojave wasteland.

“If I’m not laughing, I’m probably crying.” Shay says, breaking the silence. “And I’d rather be laughing.”

Boone stares at her for a few seconds before looking away, back at the crackling flames.

“If it bothers you I can just shut up,” She shrugs. “I know I’m an annoying person.”

He is silent for a long time, long enough that she almost thinks maybe he fell asleep behind those dark glasses of his. She knows better—Boone never falls asleep before her. Finally he lifts his head.

“You’re not annoying,” Boone says. “You’re just loud.”

It might be the nicest thing that he’s said to her, which is, in its own way, a little sad, but she’s willing to take the compliment. She smiles a wide, tooth-y grin over toward Boone.

“I guess it’s a good thing you’re quiet then!” She laughs.

“Yeah,” Boone says. “I guess it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shay, holding boone at gunpoint: laugh at my jokes :)  
> boone: 
> 
> thank you for reading :) and thank you for all the kind comments & kudos! next chapter soon!


	3. Chapter 3

“Ahhh, domestic bliss,” Shay huffs out as she plops herself down on the ratty couch. She watches as dust clouds ‘poof’ out from the cushions and grimaces. Some domestic blisses were more pleasant than others, but she couldn’t really afford to be picky. She begins to toe her boots off and places her hands behind her neck.

“Already making yourself comfortable, huh?” Arcade scowls down at her, in his classic Arcade-way. Shay smiles up at him with a toothy grin. She revels in her own ability to push his buttons. She’s not sure if she ever had a babysitter as a child—if that was even a thing anymore, but she’s sure that she has one now.

“C’mon Arcade,” Shay pats the cushion next to her, watching as dust clouds fluff upwards into the air. “You don’t wanna complete the picture of the perfect, American family with me?”

“Hmmm,” Arcade pretends to think. “Hard ‘no’.”

“So cruel,” she clutches her heart. “You would prefer me a strapping young man, huh?”

“I would prefer you to calm down,” Arcade shakes his head. “But that’s a far-off dream, isn’t it.”

“Probably.” Shay says. She sits silently for a moment as Arcade rolls his eyes, then surveys the suite. The walls are a deep crimson, chipped away at with time, and the floors are a dark black. It would seem imposing, if it wasn’t the most comfortable place they were offered in weeks. Rex had wandered into the kitchen, and ED-E hummed idly near the recreation room. Shay realizes that she is missing someone.

“Where did Boone go?” She asks. Arcade looks at her, then surveys the room quickly, craning his neck to peek into the other rooms. He shrugs after a moment, and Shay grimaces. “I’ll be right back.”

She hops into the elevator and presses the button for the lobby. It dings quietly, somehow still managing to operate despite the old age. Shay wonders were Boone would have gone without telling them. He rarely wandered off, and, even when he did, he would let them know.

Briefly, she wonders if perhaps he had decided that enough was enough. He didn’t want to travel with Shay anymore, he had his own goals, his own wishes, and being with her only slowed him down. The thought makes her stomach lurch. So long she had been traveling with Boone—she wasn’t sure what it would be like without knowing that he was right behind her, eyes trained on the horizon.

The elevator churns to a stop and the doors slowly slide open. Shay’s eyes immediately flash over to the bar, where one patron clad in a red beret sits quietly at the bar, glass in hand. A wash of relief claims Shay, and she can barely consider how foolish she was for worrying about Boone, before he looks over at her.

“You don’t wanna go upstairs?” Shay nearly shouts, and listens as her words echo around the empty casino floor. She makes out a halfhearted shrug in the distance, so she departs the elevator and heads toward the empty stool next to him. Her footsteps reverberate in the empty space, and she is grateful Boone is there. The Lucky 38 was far too creepy to be alone in.

The bar is illuminated by a single, warm light that casts odd shadows on the wood surface in front of them. Shay takes a spot next to Boone and winces as the stool squeaks loudly beneath her. Everything seems so much louder down here. She sneaks a glance at him, briefly, and sees that he’s not wearing his sunglasses. His eyes, small and sad, remain steady on his drink.

“What’re you drinking?” She asks. Boone looks over at her quickly before answering.

“Whiskey,” he says. “Want some?”

“Sure.” Shay smiles at him, but he doesn’t react. Instead, he reaches over the counter and grabs an empty glass. Lord knows it probably hasn’t been cleaned in years, but Shay will take what she can get at this point. She watches as he quickly uncaps the bottle and pours her a huge glass of whiskey. She eyes it, intimidated by the sheer amount he’s poured. She’s never been one to turn down a challenge. Shay holds to up to him in a small cheers, before taking a sip—strong.

“You always drink this?” Shay can feel the burn at the back of her throat as she speaks, her stomach desperate for some kind of chaser.

“No,” Boone shakes his head. “It was a special kind I found here, I don’t know. Never had it before, wish I hadn’t.”

Shay snorts and Boone looks over at her again. She smiles at him.

“What are you doing down here?” Shay asks. “It’s creepy.”

“It’s quiet,” Boone responds. Shay takes another sip, regretting it before the liquid even touched her tongue. She lets the warmth of it envelope her arms and legs, before shaking her head and pouring some more for herself.

“You’re weird,” Shay smiles through a sip. He doesn’t respond—doesn’t need to dignify her insults. Instead he sits there and sighs, a sigh so light and yet still so heavy. Shay wonders how a man can hold so many opposites inside of him—apathy and anger, lightness and darkness, everything and nothing.

She thinks she better slow down on the whiskey.

Suddenly, she can hear crooning through an old radio. The thought of a haunted casino briefly passes through her mind, before she looks over and sees Boone fiddling with an old radio behind the bar.

“I thought you liked it quiet down here,” Shay says.

“Nothing’s ever quiet when you’re around,” he responds. She lets the comment sit a moment, unsure of how to interpret it. Wondering whether it was the whiskey talking, or his true self, Shay frowns. She didn’t know Boone to lose control—alcohol or no.

“You can leave whenever you want.” Shay says without looking at him. She doesn’t want to see the blasé way that he’ll react to his, doesn’t want to see the unchanging nature of his gaze. It doesn’t matter how long he had been traveling with her, or how much he knew, or how much he seemed to care—she would always just be too loud or too quiet. Too this or too that. An unworthy partner or companion or friend or whatever the hell her and Boone were

“No,” Boone interrupts her train of thought. “I don’t think I can.”

Shay blinks then turns to look at him. He is staring at her, eyes narrowed, matching his gaze with her own. Suddenly she feels warm, feels the whiskey travel up to her cheeks then the tips of her ears. Maybe it wasn’t the whiskey.

“You could probably kill just as many legionaries without me.” Shay says.

“Shay,” It’s all he says, but it’s enough to quiet her protestations. Where would they go from here, she wonders. Not just from the Lucky 38, or from New Vegas, but from this conversation, the sudden discomfort lingering between them. The room closes in on her, the stuffiness getting to her head, she’s decided. She decides she’ll take it in stride.

“Boone,” She addresses him. “What was Carla like?” Her voice is smaller, smaller than she’d ever heard it. Small enough that she thinks maybe he won’t even dignify it with a response, with a look even. But he looks at her again, eyes meeting her own, then her ears, her freckles, her lips. In his head, she thinks, he’s comparing them, her and Carla.

“Mean,” He finally breaks the silence. “Beautiful. Funny.”

“Mean?” Shay asks.

“Not to me,” Boone says before taking another sip. “To Manny, to everyone in Novac. To everyone that wasn’t me. I think she felt trapped. Didn’t wanna be there. That was my fault too.”

Shay supposes she shouldn’t be surprised—she could never really see Boone with some beautiful, cheerful sunshine-y woman. It just wasn’t in his nature to be drawn to cheerful things. For the longest time, Shay had thought of Carla in absolutes. She was beautiful, hilarious, charming, perfect. She doesn’t know why she thinks of the dead woman in this way. She thinks perhaps it was her own way of honoring her, this stranger she’d never met, but wouldn’t it be more honorable to know her as the woman she was?

Shay takes a long drink before speaking up again.

“What did she look like?” She says. Boone was never a talkative man, even with some drink, but she prods and pokes, because knowing Carla was something never afforded to her. Knowing the woman that Boone still dreamt about felt important to Shay, for some reason.

“Brown hair—it was longer,” Boone begins. Longer than what, Shay wonders. “Skin like sand, freckles.” He stops, blinks, takes another sip.

Shay picks at her nail.

“You ever been married?” Boone finally asks. The question, to Shay, seems ridiculous in all sense of the word. Boone had known her for so long, the question coming up now almost seemed like a joke. She lets out a bark, a laugh, and shakes her head.

“You think anyone out there wants to marry this?” She says jokingly. Boone looks over at her, not a smile or laugh to spare. It lingers for too long, far too long.

“Probably,” He says, honestly, quietly. “Plenty of guys.”

Shay snorts.

“Not the right ones.” She says, and it feels like a platitude—something that settler girls said when the only two other single men that lived in the town were cheaters or gamblers or drunks (they were always one of the three.) Shay wasn’t sure what her “right one” would be. No one, so far.

“Yeah,” Boone sets his empty glass down. “They never are.”

She wonders, briefly, if they’re still talking about Shay and her love life, or if they were talking about something else, something more akin to a marriage no one approved of, ended swiftly with a mercy-killing to the head. She watches the way Boone’s hand travels up to the bridge of his nose, watches him pinch the space between his eyes like he’s holding something in up there. They sit like this for a few minutes. Shay feels the room warp around her a bit, the old radio crooning out some song that is just a notch too loud, and realizes that she should probably head back upstairs.

“I think I’m going to bed,” She says, breaking the silence. She wobbles off the chair and nearly tumbles to the ground before a hand steadies her. There he was again, with his damn hands, and his damn eyes—always behind her, always ready to hold her up.

“Need help?”

“I’m fine,” Shay says quietly, maybe flustered, maybe drunk, maybe both. “See you in the morning.”

She doesn’t look back as she heads up toward her room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with the layout of the Lucky 38's first floor because truthfully, honestly, who goes down there anyways. 
> 
> thanks for reading and thanks for all the feedback! more to come soon :)


	4. Chapter 4

“You hungry?” Shay asks, back against an old, sunken billboard. Comforts of the old world, like cushions and softness and sweetness didn’t exist in even the simplest actions, like sitting after a long day of walking. Perhaps the dirt beneath her was softer than pavement, but not by much.

Both Boone and Rex turn their gaze toward Shay. Rex whines, always hungry in the way only a dog can be. Boone stares at Shay.

“What’ve you got?” He asks.

“Step over to my shop,” Shay jokes. He doesn’t laugh. Typical. “I’ve got squirrel bits, iguana, some stag meat, Cram, Fancy Lad Snack Cakes, and a bottle of vodka.”

“Jesus,” Boone shakes his head. Shay smiles up at him, squinting her eyes against the dying light of the day. There was something incredibly earnest in the way Boone showed dissatisfaction in things, almost as if it was the strongest feeling he could emote to her. She found it endearing, despite the annoyed tone, as it was simply nice to know that he felt things strongly, sometimes. She passes the Cram over to him, already knowing that would be his poison of choice. She thinks maybe the hint of a smile plays over his features as she hands it to him, but she thinks it might also be the sun playing tricks on her.

Uncapping the vodka in one, swift motion, Shay holds it up against the light and watches the refractions hit behind her. She takes a swig and feels the sting then the burn. It hurts deliciously, and, like most things, she cannot seem to have it casually. She opens the box of cakes and leave it on her lap before throwing a piece of stag meat in Rex’s direction. She hears a shift of feet near her and is suddenly sitting next to Boone, close. Closer than usual.

“Drink?” Boone asks, and she hands the bottle to him quickly. This is how they were now, drinkers and sitters. They would do something violent, something rough, something quick, then they would sit and drink, and not talk about it. In her deepest thoughts, on her loneliest nights, Shay thinks of other things they could do quickly, violently, roughly that they would never talk about again. It’s ugly, she thinks, to consider him in this way, but her better mind tells her that it could be any man, it’s not really about him. Probably. Hopefully.

“So what’s gonna happen when we get there?” Shay asks.

“I figure things out,” Boone says after taking a sip. “We go from there.”

“You’re worried were gonna run into some heat?” She asks.

“We run into heat wherever we go, Shay.” Boone says, and at the sound of her name, Shay blanches. He rarely says her name, and when he does it’s scolding, condescending. She thinks maybe it makes her mad, but then sometimes she feels like she’s just waiting for him to say it.

“Yeah, but what’s gonna happen, Boone.” She says his name like a curse on her lips.

“Whatever happens,” He trails off and takes another sip.

“I’m so sick of this cryptic shit, Boone.” Shay shakes her head and turns her head away from him. “Makes me wanna strangle you.”

He scoffs out an honest-to-god laugh and Shay looks back at him with wide eyes, like seeing a Deathclaw hugging a Yao Guai. He’s smiling, she thinks, but maybe it’s mirage. It’s small, like a secret kept from her, just for him, but she swears she can see it.

“Really?” Shay asks incredulously. “That’s what does it?”

He shakes his head and the smile fades slowly, taking shape back into his mouth’s natural scowling formation. She wonders if the whole thing was just some absurd mirage brought on by the desert heat, but it feels real, and they still haven’t said anything, so she tucks the memory away back into her head as something to keep, a landmark occasion.

* * *

 

When they arrive at Bitter Springs, it’s an ugly scene. Women and children sick and hungry, hunched over in tents that wouldn’t protect them from a gust of wind much less an attack by Legionaries. Shay talks to a few of the people, Boone trailing behind her, quiet as a mouse. She wonders what he’s thinking of, what occupies his mind when his eyes travel over toward the outcropping looking over the pass. He tells her he wants to show her something, tell her something, and she obliges, because sometimes it’s just enough to talk.

They sit on the outcropping, legs hanging over the edge, and they talk. He tells her everything, tells her of Carla then the baby that never was. It’s the most she thinks she’s ever heard him speak in all of their time traveling together. Then he shifts, something in his tone, something in his posture. He begins to speak about Bitter Springs and the Khans and the women and the children. Shay can almost hear the orders barked through the comms; “Shoot until you have no bullets left.”

Sometimes it’s ugly when people tell you things. Shay feels her teeth clench, and realizes her fists are balled up against her legs. Tiny crescents dot her palm. She can feel the shame seep off of him like a mist, feels it crawl up her legs. What would she have done? Run? Been a bad soldier? Stayed? She can’t think of how she would feel if she stayed. Like a monster, like a maniac. A waste of space. But Boone was none of those things. He was a man, full of remorse for each fucked up thing this world had made him do.

He tells her he wants to stay the night, sleep on it. She can’t argue, doesn’t have the energy to, so she agrees and sets up her pack next to his on the outcropping. She gives him some space before drifting off to sleep a little bit later. A part of her struggles with leaving him, some deep-seated fear that he may decide enough is enough and end it all there creeps into her thoughts, but she pushes it down. She cannot think of a world without him watching her back, chooses not to.

She’s awoken by him. He who is always vigilant, always seemingly awake. He tells of a raiding party and then the crimson crowds her view. There were tons of them, too many of them. He tells her ‘maybe it’s too much, even for us.’ She hears the word us, the team, the partnership, Shay and Boone, and it’s all a little too much. She mumbles something to him, not even sure she said it herself and he responds.

“That day you showed up in Novac, I had a feeling I was supposed to go with you. That it was time to end all this,” He tells her, calm as ever. She can hear the footsteps of the legionaries approaching, hear her own heartbeat in her ears. She’s confused. Destiny wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. But the world demanded prices, dead conmen in exchange for a bullet in the head, a poker chip in exchange for the fate of an entire land, a weary man’s future in exchange for his sins.

Shay doesn’t say much after that, her thoughts are filled with gunfire and blood and dead legionaries. She wonders if this is how Boone thinks, all in absolutes, red and death. She yells until her voice is hoarse and shoots until her hands are swollen. Somewhere in the mix, she loses Boone, and she wonders if those were his last words to her. She yells out for him, but there’s nothing in response other than gunshots and shouts. She thinks maybe the legionaries are thinning, but she can’t tell in the dark.

Someone hits her in the back of the head, and everything goes silent.

* * *

 

Someone is speaking in a hushed tone. She can’t make out the words but she can make out the tone—somber, relieved, something, something she wasn’t familiar with.

“…just got jostled around a bit…” She hears. “…should be okay, but no more trauma to the head, if she can help it…”

They must be talking about her, and Shay thinks she can hear a man ‘hum’ in a agreement, but she can’t be sure. Sleep calls to her in its velvety comfort once more, and she shuts her eyes for a few minutes. Minutes turn to hours, and suddenly it’s nighttime again, and she opens her eyes to face the inside of a tent. She rolls over on her back, soreness and stiffness making her bones creak like an old ship’s metal. Shay surmises that it must be the medical tent at Bitter Springs, which meant that enough settlers were still alive to occupy the medical tent, and to help her. Which meant that her and Boone had been successful, and Bitter Springs hadn’t fallen to the legionaries. That had to count for something, Shay thinks as her bones cry out.

“Shay,” Boone’s voice interrupts her thoughts and she looks over toward him. He sits on a chair across from her cot, arms crossed, glasses aside.

“Oh Boone,” Shay croaks out. “You’re alive. I thought you were gone.”

"Could say the same for you,” Boone says. “Probably both of us should be.”

She stares at him quietly for a moment, eyes trained steadily on his face. He’s weary, his eyes low, but he’s still here and so is she, and she thinks, maybe that’s not what he wanted at all.

“That’s why you wanted to come here,” Shay says. “For your cosmic justice.”

He scoffs and turns his eyes away from her. She knew she had caught him, like a kid in a cookie jar, he was guilty of it. But she doesn’t feel angry, doesn’t feel frustrated. She just feels tired.

“Boone,” Shay says. “There’s no such thing as destiny. Sometimes things just happen and we live with them. No one is judging or punishing you.”

He looks back at her with narrowed eyes, full of something she can’t place. He’s never really looked at her like this before, and she’s not sure what to do under his gaze.

“If that’s how it is, there’s not a lot of comfort in knowing it.” Boone finally says.

They sit like this, in this weird, heavy silence for far too long. Shay understands the feeling of being lost, of knowing what you were supposed to do about who you were, about what you’d done. She understands the hopelessness of not knowing the future, or why it’s made you do what you do. Maybe it’s the painkillers of the lowlight in the tent, she can’t be sure of what drives her to reach out and place her hand on top of his. He flinches for a moment, unused to the touch of another person, but his hand stays in place. She can feel the roughness of his knuckles, contrasted with the coolness of his skin. She keeps her hand there, light as a feather.

“Sometimes life gives us options. We can’t really take back what we’ve done,” Shay says quietly. “But we can do better. That’s the nice thing about second chances.”

He looks at her, eyes softer than she’s ever seen them before, and hums in agreement.

They don’t say much else that night, other than Shay asking for water before falling asleep. She places her hand once more on Boone’s, and is surprised when, once again, he doesn’t move it away. Then she drifts off once more, dead to the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very long chapter, but it's the turning point for both of them, so it kinda had to be. Thank you for reading, and thank you for all the kind feedback! Next chapter to come soon.


	5. Chapter 5

“…and then she told me, ‘Well, you’re not really my type.’ which really messed me up for a little while,” Veronica was going off about some girl that she met a long time ago, back when she first started up with the Brotherhood. They all listened amicably around the dinner table like some fucked up little family. Shay had accrued more and more freaks and weirdos as her journeys through the Mojave persisted. She loved Arcade and his sardonic disdain for nearly everything she did, and Cass’s potty-mouth and general boisterousness was enough to make a grown man blush. Their newest addition, Veronica, warmed up to Shay quickly, which she figured had something to do with their similar personalities. Truthfully, Shay liked Veronica. It was nice to have someone who could reflect your own enthusiasm for conversation, for a change.

“How about you Shay?” Cass asked as she stuffed some food in her mouth. “Got any horror stories?”

Shay shakes out of her reverie as they address her.

“Kind of,” Shay laughs as she looks down at her food. “Men don’t really talk to me all that much.”

“I don’t believe that,” Cass laughs. “Look at you.”

“Underfed and dirty? Yeah, they’re all over me.” Shay jokes and all but one at the table laugh.

“I don’t believe you either,” Veronica smiles at her. “I think you’re very charming.”

“Are you hitting on me, Veronica?”

They laugh again, and it feels really, genuinely good to have people to laugh with about stupid shit. Shay thinks of where she was a month ago, two months ago, and is grateful that that place doesn’t exist anymore.

“Hey Boone,” Cass nearly shouts at him. “Do men hit on Shay a lot?”

He looks up from his food, and, for some reason, Shay is dreading the answer. It was embarrassing enough to confront the fact on her own, but to have someone else bring it up? That would be awful.

“Not really,” Boone answers, honestly, and the table all stop and look at him. “They stare.”

“At me?” Shay asks incredulously.

“Yeah,” Boone shrugs.

“Oh,” Shay trails off, unsure of what to do with the information.

“Good thing there’s a horrifying, ex-first recon sniper at your back all the time, huh Shay?” Cass jokes, and Shay wishes she would just stop, for one second. She watches as Cass and Arcade exchange a look, and Cass lets out a chuckle. Oh, she hates them.

Boone lets out a scoff, maybe it’s a laugh, and everyone silences for a moment. He rarely laughs, especially in front of anyone else. Shay wonders if maybe it’s a small victory, or a huge failure on her part, but she can see the surprise on the others’ faces.

Their dinner talk melds back into something less embarrassing, and Shay is grateful for that. However grateful she is for friends, it is also a little bit horrifying to be so vulnerable to so many different people. She supposes, it’s a risk she’s willing to take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait on this chapter. I was very stuck & also very busy irl. Next chapter will be a doozy, since this one was rather short. Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

The night is the worst time, when she’s laying in bed and her thoughts travel to her being on her knees in the dirt, mouth dry from the air, eyes water-y, a pistol aimed right at her head. Benny was long dead, but he still haunts her. His eyes, small and uncomfortably warm are etched into her mind like a hot brand, still sizzling. She thinks of the pain of solitude, the idea that perhaps she had been dead, perhaps not. Was there a heaven for people like her? She doesn’t think she wants to know the answer.

The heat gets to her too, she thinks. The Lucky 38 was by no means a cool and comfortable place. The walls seemed to radiate with an uncomfortable warmth, a warmth that eked its way into her skin, a warmth that suffocated in the dead of the night.

She gets up, removes her shirt and bottoms, desperate for any sort of cool she could find. It doesn’t really help, but she thinks if she tries to put on any more layers she will catch fire. Without turning on any lights, she sits down on the couch in her room and lights a cigarette. She didn’t smoke much, leave that to her partners and companions, but sometimes the world was just too much some nights.

Someone knocks on her door. She thinks, maybe it’s Veronica or Cass, the only two who typically venture toward her private room so she calls out for them to come in, whatever they wanted at this godforsaken hour.

She is surprised to find that it is neither of them, and is instead Boone. Not even thinking of her state, she wonders why he looks away when he first comes in.

“Wanted to talk to you about something. I can leave if you’d rather be alone.” He says without looking at her directly. Shay furrows her brows. Far be it for her to turn down a conversation, but seldom did Boone pull her aside to talk about anything other than priorities—enemies, food, water. She tentatively responds.

“Yeah, come on in,” She says. “Do you mind if I stay like this? It’s hot as hell in here.”

“Guess not,” Boone says as he steps in. Any strangeness about her state of dress dissipates as Boone sits next to her on the couch, not too close, but not very far. He outstretches his arm behind him, and Shay notes the closeness to her shoulder. Something in the pit of her belly rumbles, not physically, but she feels an unfamiliar strangeness bubble up. He seems relaxed, more relaxed then she thinks she’s ever seen him. She can smell the whiskey on his breath, but he seems here, present.

“Didn’t know you smoked.” Boone says as he looks at her. Shay shrugs, unsure if she could find a good excuse for why she started.

“Want one?” She asks.

“Sure,” He says. So Shay grabs one from her pack and hands it to him. He sticks it in his mouth, and Shay watches as he fumbles around his pockets for a lighter. She grabs the one on the arm of the couch that she had used and holds it up as if to light it for him. He looks at her, looks at the lighter in her hands. He leans forward, and she can smell him stronger than she ever has—whiskey, cigarettes, sweat. She clicks the lighter, once, twice, and on the third time she lights the cigarette for him. She watches the way the flame reflects warm against his face, his face, so young and still so worn. Something passes between them—a moment, strange and quiet, yet violent and familiar. Shay looks at him, clearly, before flicking her cigarette and turning away.

They sit like this for a few minutes, and Shay can feel the smoke from his cigarette tickle her bare arms, her bare legs. She realizes now, the strangeness of it. She wears only her nightshirt and underwear, and yet he hadn’t said a word about it. Any other man in the Mojave would have something to say, some sneer to offer, but he was silent. She looks over at him, traces his jawline with her eyes, and wonders how it would feel under her fingers.

“What did you want to talk about?” Shay asks, desperate to bring herself down to earth, to stop thinking about his fucking jawline, and her nearly-naked body, and the tiny light between them.

“At Bitter Springs,” Boone says before quickly flicking some ash off of his cigarette. “You said we get ‘second chances,’”

“Yeah,” Shay says before taking another drag.

“Is that what all this is for you?” He asks, and she’s taken aback. In all of their travels, Boone hadn’t asked much of Shay. Not a lot of personal questions, not a lot of any questions really. She figured it was always due to disinterest, but she knows now it was for fear of getting too close. Knowing people, really knowing them, was a vulnerability few could afford. She looks at him, looks in his eyes, naked as they are.

“I thought I had died,” Shay says. “I think I was supposed to.”

Boone’s lips twitch.

“But I didn’t, and I haven’t so far,” Shay shrugs. “So I figure, why not keep going?”

He doesn’t say anything, but rather just looks at her. He looks at her eyes, and her mouth, then settles on the scar, ever-fading on her cheekbone.

“Maybe it’s all one big second chance.” She says quietly. A moment passes, far too long, before Boone reaches up, and Shay thinks, for a moment, he is going to kiss her, and she wonders why her mind conjures such an idea. But rather, he touches his index finger to the scar. She’s never really felt his touch before, not in this way. There had been bandage-wrappings and Stimpak-stabbings, but never something so slow and quiet.

“Maybe that’s what we both do,” Boone says quietly, and she’s not sure she’s ever heard his voice sound like this before. She wonders, perhaps, if it’s a voice another woman with freckles once heard, so many moons ago. “Keep going.”

He removes his finger from her face, and she can immediately feel its absence in the warm air, a cold spot amidst it all. How long had it been, she wondered, since he had touched another. He leans back, brings his arm back to his side and puts out his cigarette. Something in the air extinguishes, and Shay is left with just a little bit of whiplash.

“Thanks for the cigarette, Shay,” and when he says her name it doesn’t sound like a demand or an insult, but it sounds somehow sweet and lovely and sad all together. “Goodnight.”

He begins to get up but Shay grabs his hand, desperate for something to hold on to.

“Can you stay?” She asks, and it sounds lewd and wrong and clumsy as it tumbles out of her mouth into the air between them. He doesn’t look at her, and she’s sure she already knows the answer. She wants nothing out of him other than his companionship, but she’s sure that’s not how it sounds. Her tiny hand it wrapped tightly around his wrists, and she can feel the muscles tighten as she asks the question.

“Shay,” Boone says quietly.

“Just stay,” Shay stands up and lets go of his hand. She stands behind him now. “You can stay on the couch if you want, or I don’t know.”

He turns around and looks at her.

“I just keep seeing it in my head,” Shay shakes her head as she speaks, words coming out too fast now. “Everything, and I want to put it all behind me, and I can’t sleep alone, I-“

She stops talking. None of the words seems to make sense in her head, and they come out especially wrong when she brings them to form. Boone is looking at her, not saying a word. She can’t read his eyes, goddamn them, and his body language betrays nothing. Something pinches behind her eyes and she wonders if she’s going to cry in front of him like a child. She takes a deep breath, and is betrayed by the way it shakes audibly when she lets it out.

“I’ll stay,” Boone says. “I’ll stay.”

Another moment passes between them, and Shay takes another breath.

“Thank you,” She finally breathes out, and the moment ends.

* * *

 

It starts off innocently enough, she thinks. Boone stays on the couch in her room each night. She tries to wear more clothes to bed to assuage the situation. The others have already began to speak about it, particularly the new arrival Raul. Shay likes him, but boy, is he chatty. Cass asks all matters of crass questions, but Shay doesn’t indulge her. There’s nothing to indulge. No sordid stories of carnal escapades in the middle of the night.

After a few weeks of this arrangement, something shifts, and Shay isn’t sure what’s caused it or why it’s happened now, but it’s tangible to both of them she thinks. One night she lays in her nightclothes, uncomfortable in the heat, but unwilling to make this any more uncomfortable than she already had.

“Mind if I stay over there tonight?” Boone asks so casually. Shay leans up on her hands and looks over at Boone who is sitting on the couch. She blinks at him, not really seeing any definitions in the darkness, and unsure what kind of invitation this was, what kind of arrangement this was going to become.

“Sure,” She says, against all the better judgement in her mind. She fluffs the pillows and scoots over to make room for him, and turns away as he gets up and heads over. She can hear and feel his body sit down on the bed, then lay down next to her. She keeps her breaths steady, unsure of where any of this was coming from. To be so platonic as to sleep next to one another was equal parts comforting and disappointing. Shay didn’t know where the feelings had sprung up from. Maybe it was all just loneliness. But goddamn if it didn’t feel good to have someone she knew, someone she was comfortable with, next to her.

“Why?” She asks quietly, so quietly she’s not even sure he’s heard.

“I can go back over if you want,” Boone says. Shay shakes her head, knowing that regret will surely set in any minute now. It doesn’t, so she rolls over to face him, and oh god, he’s so close now.

“No I just—“ She cuts herself off, unsure of what to say next. “Why?”

Boone looks at her for a little while then turns his face toward the ceiling.

“Shay,” He whispers, almost as a sigh. “You’re all I’ve got left.”

She doesn’t respond to that, isn’t sure how to. She thinks, in some strange way, that he’s right, and, even stranger, he might be all she’s got left too. After all this is said and done, who will still be there, and who will leave? She thinks she knows. He turns to face her and suddenly he’s so close again.

“Boone,” She breathes out his name like she was holding it in for ages, centuries, eons. So when he reaches out to wrap his arm around her waist, she doesn’t stop him, reveling in the way his muscles squeezed around her. She thinks that maybe he wishes she was someone else, but she pushes the thought away, afraid that it may ruin any moment of sincerity between the two. They fall asleep like that, her back to his chest, and she can feel his breath warm on her neck.

When she wakes up the next day he’s gone off to make breakfast or clean his gun or anything that can make him feel normal, she thinks. She sits in her bed for a while, still feeling the tightness of his arm around her, his breath on her neck. It’s enough, she thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A doozy! Thanks for reading and for all the feedback. See you next chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

When Mr. House dies, the first thing Shay wonders is if they’ll still have the suite. There was much comfort in that place. It was a bastion, a place to go when the world was too much. She thinks of losing it all, her companions dispersing to their respective places. She wouldn’t be able to hear Daisy’s loud grumblings, to Raul’s raspy jokes, Veronica’s laugh, Cass’s snort. It makes her sick to think of losing it, losing her queen size bed and her running shower. Silly material things that wouldn’t have mattered to her otherwise.

Yes Man tells her, in plain terms, that she’s the boss now, which is hilarious to her because the most she’s ever been in charge of was a robot dog. She asks him, plain faced, exhausted from the day, from the fighting, from everything.

“Can I keep the penthouse?”

“Why yes, of course! You’re the house now!”

Shay ignores the second part of the answer, choosing to forgo that bit of information for something easier, something more digestible. She leaves Yes Man in the lobby, tells him to watch the doors, as if anyone could even get in. And finally she gets in that shitty, creaky old elevator. It churns and huffs it’s way up to the suite and she is immediately greeted by a happy robodog and a gaggle of her companions.

“We were so worried about you!”

“What happened!”

“You alright, boss?”

“What’s gonna happen now?”

She doesn’t answer any of them, just exchanges pats, glances and hugs before heading off to her room. She can feel their eyes on her back, questions racing, but she can’t bring herself to speak to them. To say anything really.

When she enters her room she is surprised to see Boone sitting on the couch, beret firmly on his head, sunglasses up against his eyes. He’s surveying an old magazine when he notices the door open and close, and Shay entering the room.

"Shay,” Boone says quietly, and she’s isn’t used to hearing her name from him now. “We were worried about you.”

“That so?” She chuckles as she throws off her boots and the bandana around her neck. Her bed looks so comfortable right now, like a big, gentle cloud. She thinks it could embrace her, could sink her into it, and she would be content.

“Yeah,” and he follows her as she trudges over toward the bed. “What happened in there?”

“I don’t really wanna talk about it, Boone,” She says as she sits down. He sits down next to her. “It was just tiring and upsetting and I don’t really wanna think about it right now. I just want to leave it alone.”

He doesn’t ask anymore questions, doesn’t prod for any more information, so they sit in silence for a few moments. He quietly places a hand on her shoulder, and she thinks she can feel some tension leave her immediately. Strange the effect the man that you’re sleeping with, but not really sleeping with, can have on you, she thinks.

“Were you worried about me?” She turns to him and asks. He looks at her behind his sunglasses.

“Yeah,” He says, plainly. “I was.”

“I killed him,” She whispers to him, like it’s their own little secret. And hell, it probably should be considering what would happen if the news got out. “I killed him.”

Boone looks at her for a long moment, staring like he always does. When he stares, she wishes she could just take all of the thoughts in his head and pull them out and read them for herself, just to know how to respond, how to act. She thinks, maybe she can get the thoughts out if she touches him, if she gives a small part of herself to him.

She places a hand on the side of his face, lets her thumb fall upon his cheekbone. If he feels something he doesn’t show it, his face unchanged. Before she can stop herself or what’s about to happen, she lets go—lets something else take charge of her body for once. She leans forward, presses her lips to his in something small, chaste. Nothing of the dreams she dreams, or the dark thoughts she has when she’s alone. He doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t return the kiss. Shay leans backward, separating them, knowing that the impact of what she’s done is soon to come crumbling down on her in an avalanche. She just wants him to say something, to say anything. She closes her eyes and looks away, attempts to will the situation away from herself, to now have just ruined the only partnership she’s ever had.

She feels his hand grab her cheek and bring her back to him, and before she can quite figure out what’s going on his lips are against hers. What starts slow turns to more, something hungrier and more desperate. His hands are in her hair, on her neck, around her waist. In a moment she thinks it’s too much, then a moment later not enough. She wants to unspool and undo him, to know him as only she could. His mouth trails down her cheek, down her neck and she can feel warmth resonate throughout her from her abdomen to her fingertips.

She whispers out his name, almost in warning, and his lips break away from her body. When she looks down at him it’s almost too much—his eyes, sharp and hazy all at once, his strong hands still splayed against the fabric on her waist.

“Maybe we should stop,” She says, and she’s not sure what spirit is possessing her to stop what little attention she’s received in months, but she supposes she trusts it.

“Yeah,” He says, his eyes, like a switch, returning to normal. “Okay.”

“I just…I-“ Shay isn’t really sure how to word it. “I’m afraid of what’ll happen if we keep going.”

“I’m sorry Shay,” Boone says, eyes turning to the wall.

“No, don’t be, I just-“ Shay stops herself again. “I don’t wanna fuck it all up.”

Boone doesn’t really say anything, almost as if he’s in a trance. His eyes train on the wall, tracing patterns that Shay can’t see. How badly she truly did want to fuck it up, though. She places a hand on his knee, feels the way his leg tenses up underneath her hand.

“It was nice, though,” She says, almost to him, almost to herself. He turns to her once more.

“Shay,” Boone says her name again, like a melody, like a curse. “I was worried about you when you left today. You drive me crazy.”

She’s not really sure why he says it like that, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. She smiles a little at his openness, so unused to him just saying things out in the open like that. When she wraps her arms around him for hug, he flinches despite the prior heavy contact, but returns it eventually.

Small parts of her think that maybe he just sees Carla when he closes his eyes, but most parts of her ignore it. He was worried about her, Shay. It had been her who traveled across the Mojave with him. Who helped him at Bitter Springs. She was there and present, and—most importantly—willing to wait for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeesh! a whole kiss! Thanks so much for all the kudos and feedback & thank you for reading. Next chapter should be out sooner than this one was.


	8. Chapter 8

Arcade sits across from her, arms and legs crossed. Shay smiles a thin, fake smile as he stares at her reflection through his glasses.

“No.” He finally settles on.

“Please Arcade,” Shay pleads with him, hands crossed in prayer. “I need you there with me.”

“I know you do, which is why I’m not going,” he says. “Because you’re not going either.”

She frowns at him, frustration bubbling just beneath her skin. She had been so used to following orders before—take this package there, deliver this mail here. Don’t dally or we’ll cut your pay for the day. That bullet in her brain had given her the oddest feeling of freedom since she was a child. Her decisions were her own, much like the one she was currently trying to reason with Arcade. His frown was steady though, and she can see the way he tenses up, from the tightness in his jaw to the whiteness of his knuckles.

“He’ll listen to me,” she says. “He knows what I did.”

“Yes,” Arcade rubs his nose under his glasses, and Shay watches as she distorts in the reflection of them. “And he’ll want to use you, and he’ll be able to because you do stupid things sometimes, and they get you in trouble.”

“Stupid!?” Shay huffs out. She knows he’s a little right, but to have someone so blatantly admit one of your fatal flaws stung a little, especially someone that you considered yourself close with. “Because I care about shit, I’m stupid?”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he shakes his head, not willing to match her anger with his own. “I just mean that you tend to do emotional things when your emotions run high, and I’m almost positive that’ll happen at the particular location you’re planning on going to.”

“Fuck that,” she turns her gaze away from him, sick of looking at his snide mug.

“Why don’t you take Boone?” He finally asks, after a few minutes too long of silence. Shay blinks before fiddling with something on her Pip-boy.

“He can’t go there, you know that,” Shay says quietly, afraid that if she spoke too loud he would find out, would be summoned to the scene to hear her betray him so blatantly to their friends. “It’ll be guns blazing.”

Arcade ‘hums’ in agreement.

“We’ll both get killed,” she bites the bottom of her lip, feels the dry skin crackle beneath her teeth. “He knows that. So do you.”

Arcade doesn’t say anything after that, but rather studies Shay’s face.

“It’ll be suicide if you go in alone,” he says, something akin to fear in his tone. “You can’t go alone.”

Shay stares at him for a long time, then down at her feet. Maybe the Mojave would just have to learn to be self sufficient, and she could wander off in a blaze of glory. In the Legion camp, a quick pistol whip to Caesar’s face. She would be dead, certainly—immediately, but maybe it would be enough. Maybe that’s how it was all supposed to end anyways—the blaze of glory. She thinks, briefly, she sounds just like Boone, and it’s really no surprise. They’d been traveling together for so long, it felt like forever really. Of course she was going to start sounding like him.

“I won't go alone,” Shay nods as she speaks, trying to drive the point home for Arcade. She can tell he’s unconvinced. “I’ll figure something else out, probably.”

She tacks on the ‘probably’ at the end, because then at least she wasn’t totally dishonest. Arcade doesn’t really say anything else, just frowns in her general direction, knowing that she was probably lying to him, and everyone else.

Shay doesn’t really sleep that night. Boone doesn’t stay with her anymore, not since their incident however many nights ago. Some part of her selfishly believes its personal restraint—the idea that temptation was still there. She thinks that might an evil part of herself, some part that she wished to push down to the best of her abilities. Still, she takes the thought to bed with her, ruminates in it, lets it sit in her brain for long enough to be flattered.

* * *

 

The next morning she wakes early, early enough that nobody else is really awake yet. She throws together a quick pack—some stimpaks, all the grenades she could possibly find, and a few other things. It was a long trip from New Vegas to Cottonwood, but she was willing to make it alone. The word hung heavy in her mind while she packed—alone. It had been a very long time since she had been alone. In fact, the last time she was truly alone she had been jumped and shot in the head. The memory makes her skin crawl, the scar on her face burn, but she ignores the feeling. There were more important things at hand.

As Shay tries to step out the door her nose betrays her, and the scent of fresh coffee distracts her from her mission. She wonders who could be awake, but the question is moot. Who doesn’t sleep? She peeks in the kitchen area and sees Boone standing over the stove, coffee pot sitting on one of the coils. She looks him up down, commits his appearance to memory. She doesn’t want to lie to him, and, in a few hours, when Arcade awakes and finds her gone they’ll all know the truth. Maybe they’ll try some absurd rescue mission, and that thought upsets her more than any of the others. She doesn’t want anyone to come after her—she was going for a diplomatic visit with the most terrifying tyrant in the Mojave. What could go wrong?

“Where are you going?” His voice breaks Shay out of her thoughts, and she frowns. How did he know that she was there? She was being quiet.

“Recon trip for some official Miss House business,” She had taken to calling herself Miss House like it was hilarious joke. It wasn’t really. It seemed to get less funny the more she said it. “Should be back in a few days.”

Boone steps out from the kitchen and leans against the doorframe. She looks at him, so casual with his coffee and his posture, she wonders what a life would be like if they could all just stay here forever. His is the picture of domesticity, if domesticity meant the occasional recon trip. Shay scowls at him, a big over-exaggerated scowl that she knows will lighten the mood.

“Where to?” He asks before taking a sip of coffee.

“South of here, down the ways a bit.” Shay blunders a bit, knowing that no matter what she says he’ll be skeptical. Might as well tell the truth a little bit. He takes another long sip, drinks like he smokes—long and slow.

“You going alone?” He asks.

“Yeah,” she shrugs. “Is that a problem? I shouldn’t run into anything too crazy, just gonna squeeze in, squeeze out.”

"Sure,” Boone says, unconvinced, she can tell. “You gonna take Rex, at least?”

Shay closes her eyes, rolls them behind her closed lids so Boone can’t see, then opens them again, shooting him an incredulous look.

“Why can’t I just go and do something by myself?”

Boone doesn’t say anything after that, but Shay thinks she can see it in his eyes: why do you want to? He doesn’t get it, or rather, he does, which is why he would never let her go. She wasn’t him though, wasn’t desperate to go on some self-sacrificing mission to take down as many bad guys as she could. Sure there might be collateral, but she was going to do good for the Mojave. Tangible, physical good.

“I’m gonna go Boone,” Shay says finally. “I’ll be back in a few days.”

He doesn’t say goodbye, but neither does she really.

Halfway to Cottonwood Cove, Shay realizes that she’s being followed. It had been a long trip, an all-day excursion through not only the dredges of Freeside, but also the wild, unsettled Mojave. She had managed to avoid most of the bigger problems, sniped a few spare Khans here and there, and ran from Cazadore nests before they woke. It’s in the night, when she settles down to make a small camp does she realize the bodies don’t always match the missing bullets. She thinks it might be her own personal guardian angel, but she knows better than to believe that. She sets up her campsite, throwing together a small fire in front of her in a small circle of rocks. Turning the radio up on her pip-boy, she looks all around her, looking for that ever-familiar glint of a sniper rifle’s barrel.

“I know you’re out there!” She yells. “You don’t have to hide.”

No one says anything, before she suddenly hears the crack of a rifle come from behind her. She turns around to see the perpetrator, but only finds a dead Nightstalker, head a-splatter, that must’ve been headed in her direction. She smiles.

“Cute,” Shay says, mostly to herself. As she waits for Boone to reappear she grabs a bottle of whiskey and begins to drink. The drink calls to her like a siren in the night, a bad habit she could never really kick. The burn of the liquid feels so good as it crawls down her throat, into the pit of her belly.

“Shay,” Boone’s voice comes from somewhere behind her, and she doesn’t even look at him to greet him, already distracted by her drink and the crippling reality that she was in way over her head. “What the hell are you doing.”

He doesn’t word it as a question, just a proclamation of anger, a proclamation of frustration. Shay doesn’t say anything, she just pats the ground next to her and beckons him to sit.

“Arcade tell you the situation?”

“Yeah,” Boone responds as he slowly plops down next to her. “He offered to come too, but I thought it’d be better if I came alone.”

Shay hums, not really into the whole idea of the conversation right now. She just wants to drink her whiskey in silence, and for once, she tastes the delicious irony of the role reversal. For once, she just wishes that Boone would shut up so she could enjoy the silence.

“I wanted to talk to him,” Shay shrugs as she speaks, like her plan was ramshackle, thrown-together, when, in reality, she had been working on it since she killed Mr. House. “See if I could kill him in his sleep or something. I thought it would work better if I had Arcade with me, but if I had you with me well, we’d end up both dead. You would, at least.”

“You think he would’ve talked to you?” Boone doesn’t look at her when he speaks, eyes trained steadily on the tiny fire in front of them.

“Maybe,” Shay says. “I have a lot of power right now. I thought maybe he’d be willing to hear me just enough.”

“What were you gonna do after you killed him?” Boone asks her.

“Get out as fast as I fuckin’ could,” she laughs out. “Come home. Blow ‘em all up.”

Boone doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and she finally allows herself to look over at him. She studies his profile, the way his eyes sit behind his glasses which sit so perfectly atop his nose, his pair of lips, chapped against her own, but still soft.

“That's a shitty plan,” he finally says, still staring into the fire. “You probably would’ve died.”

“Yeah,” Shay shrugs. “I didn’t really wanna die. I just wanted to…I don’t know. I wanted to do something.”

Boone doesn’t respond to that still, and Shay takes this as an opportunity to take another swig of whiskey. It’s starting to hit her now, the gentle sway of getting buzzed overtaking her senses and her better judgement, and god, he’s right there, so sad and handsome.

“You can still do something,” Boone says it after a few moments of contemplation. “You and me.”

“We’ll die, Boone.” Shay laughs when she says it, some strange emotion spurred on by the whiskey.

“Yeah,” Boone says shaking his head. “You were ready to do that anyway this time, you know.”

Shay doesn’t reply to that because, no, she wasn’t really ready to die, and in the deepest pit of her stomach, in the smallest part of her mind, she knew that she was never going to follow through with this. She’d get to Cottonwood Cove, talk to Caesar, return home with the burden of her lies, and try and figure everything out from there.

But something about the moonlight, the way the whiskey feels in her stomach, the smell of him, the prospect of doing something is all so tantalizing, so intoxicating she believes that, for a moment, maybe they can do it. That maybe, this was the reason for their second chances.

“We can try,” Shay says, barely above a whisper. Boone looks at her, and she feels honest under his gaze. There’s no whiskey talking, no false promises or lies.

“We can,” he nearly whispers back. It’s all so stupid, she thinks, and yet, she can’t see herself doing anything else now. She smiles at him, all teeth, and she can see herself reflected in his glasses, looking young, too young to feel the weight of the world. She thinks maybe, he feels it too. Despite it all, Boone was only a few years older than her, not even in his thirties yet. She wonders where the young man in him is. Wonders where the young woman in her is.

They sit in silence for what feels like forever.

“Can we talk about the other night?” Shay breaks the silence because booze makes her brave, and so does the prospect of imminent death the next day. Boone takes off his glasses, and oh, she hates it now. It’s too honest, too clear to see his eyes, which used to be so indecipherable to her. Now she feels she knows them almost better than her own.

“I’m not trying to replace anyone,” Shay begins. “I don’t want it to be like that.”

And the lights were on, the sheets were off, everything was out in the open now. She thinks that maybe talking about Carla would ruin everything, but if that’s the lesser of two risks between saying what she felt and dying tomorrow, she would take saying what she felt every time. It hurt a little, to bring her up, to bring her out in this ugly thing that they had created, but it was a good hurt. A necessary hurt.

“You’re not,” Boone says. She looks in his eyes, and, truthfully, he seems honest. “It’s not like that.”

Shay blinks and looks at the fire, suddenly feeling all too warm in her cheeks, on her ears.

“I don’t want a replacement,” Boone says. “No one could.”

“What do you want then?” Shay says through a frown.

“I don’t know,” Boone shakes his head, as if he can’t believe what he’s saying. “It felt good. I don’t wanna leave.”

Shay smiles despite herself.

“I wanna stay with you,” he says. “Shit, I wanna take Fortification Hill with you and kill Caeser. You and me.”

Shay doesn’t respond, doesn’t feel like she needs to. In its own fucked up way, it’s probably the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to her, and she doesn’t want to ruin it by saying something stupid, or sticking her foot in her mouth. They sit in silence for a few moments, Boone’s proclamation still hanging heavily in between them. Shay can see it in her head, grabbing him, kissing him, making love under the low Mojave moon. It doesn’t seem quite right to her, and yet, somehow it seems to be the only way. She laughs. Boone would never let his guard down long enough for a proper bedding out here.

She kisses him on the cheek, something small to affirm his sentiments. But when she sees his face, sees his eyes, sees everything about him, it’s all too much. She wraps her hands around his neck and kiss him deeper, slower, and he is so quick to respond, to reach, to move with her. It’s desperate, like they’re both afraid the other will let go soon, but neither do, and Boone reaches over and grabs Shay by the waist, hoisting her up on his lap so her legs are on either side of him. The briefness of it all, takes her by surprise and she lets out an uncharacteristic squeak. She laughs into the kiss, and she can hear it from him too, a deep rumble she’s never heard from him before. It rumbles in him, and her too.

He kisses her cheeks and before trailing down to her jaw, and it feels so good just to be here with him she can’t help but sigh. She feels him underneath her, strong and steady, holding up her small body with such ease and such gentleness. They stay like this for what seems like forever, and still not enough. He kisses with such ease, how could this be the same man she met all those months ago? And finally, when he moans into her ear, she understands what she could not understand so many months ago. To undo him is to know him, she knows now. The extremes within him—dangerous and gentle, strong and soft, ugly and beautiful—they all made sense now, all could exist, cataclysmically within one man. He was like her—too much of everything.

It’s all so perfect, she almost forgets that they’ll probably die tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I lied. This definitely took longer than the last chapter. I've been super busy with work lately, so the next chapter might also be a bit of a wait. Thanks so much for reading & for all the feedback!!


	9. Chapter 9

Caeser’s body falls at her feet, and Shay listens to it hit the ground with an unremarkable ‘thump.’ Nothing changes drastically, no radical shift in the wasteland, no impending storm clouds of doom. All she can hear is the blood sputter out of the stab wound on the side of his neck. In all of the bodies dispatched, all of the death spread out over the camp today, his, surprisingly, had been the most forgettable. She stares down at him, blinking blood out of her eye.

A voice calls out behind her.

“Shay,” it’s Boone, because it’s always Boone. “Shay.”

She turns to face him, watches as his nose crinkles, the way his sunglasses move up on the bridge of his nose. He steps toward her cautiously, eyes peering around her to meet the dead body on the ground. Blood pools around them, she's not really sure whose it is, whose it ever was.

“He’s dead.” The sentence settles in the air uncomfortably, shouted out halfway between a proclamation and halfway in disbelief. Shay digs the toe of her shoe into the dirt watching as blood drips down onto the ground as her head hangs.

Boone doesn’t respond to her, but she can feel his approach, eager and all too quick.

“Boone,” she says. “I’m bleeding.”

“You—“ Boone cuts himself off and moves his head around as if to find a better angle. “You’ve got a nasty cut.”

Shay could hardly feel anything, but she was sure the adrenaline was about the only thing keeping her standing at the moment. She looks down at her hands, finds two bloody stumps where fingers used to be—more blood drips down sickly and slowly toward the earth.

“I lost my fingers,” Shay says as she shakes her head. “Holy shit.”

“What!?” Boone’s voice swells with an emotion Shay recognizes as panic. Seldom did she hear that sort of tone on his tongue. It mixes with the adrenaline that keeps her standing, shoots through her veins like a tincture of energy. She smiles despite herself, feels the blood on her lips drip down, tastes the metal on her tongue.

“I think I'm gonna pass out,” Shay says with a shake of her head, foggy in the haze of victory. Somewhere between exhausted and exhilarated. They had done it. Both of them—together, in this ridiculous mess of brown and red. They had killed them all.

And, because of the universe’s sense of humor, they were both still alive.

“Shay,” Boone’s voice sounds distant in her head—a memory quickly fading. “Shay, come here.”

The last thing she hears is his voice before the world before her swallows itself, and all things quiet to a still darkness she hasn’t known in a very long time.

* * *

 

 

The first sense to return to her is the sound of gentle ripples, water beneath her. The taste and smell of metal still settles high in her nose, on her tongue, but there is also a sharp clearness to the air, an obvious change of location from the camp. Hardwood provides little comfort beneath her, and Shay aches as she sits up and opens her eyes.

“Steady,” Boone’s voice finds her as his hands carefully touch her back. She looks over at him, sees the blood on his hands, still, she cannot see behind his glasses. They are surrounded by water, returning back on the raft that sent them over to the Legion encampment. The sun hangs low in the sky, a dusky glow settles over everything.

“What happened?” Shay’s voices hardly sounds like her own, filled with the coarseness of sand and dirt and distinctly marked by lack of use. Boone doesn’t say anything at first, but pinches the bridge of his nose, making his glasses push upwards on his face. Shay glances a peek at his eyes underneath, but sees nothing before the glasses fall back down.

“They’re dead,” Boone says to her. “Caeser too.”

Shay stares at him, unsure of what to say or how to respond. ‘Congrats?’ felt crass. ‘We did it!’ felt hokey. Most words and phrases felt wrong, it all fell short. Instead, Shay settles for a bark of a laugh and a shake of the head.

“You-“ Boone struggles with the words for a moment, but Shay can see him point to her hand. “Your fingers are gone. Two of ‘em, at least.”

Shay looks down at her left hand, amazed and shocked at the two stumps where her pinky and next finger had been, for lack of a better term, chopped off. The bandages were bloody, and Shay imagines that the lack of pain may be a side effect of the numerous meds she was sure Boone had her on.

“Wow thats…” she trails off, unsure what else could be said.

“I’m sorry.” Boone says quietly.

“Rather two fingers than a head, or a leg,” Shay says with a shrug that sends a sharp pain down her back. She winces and shakes it out. “And, you know, you should see the other guy.”

No matter how many ridiculous things she says, that she jokes about, she never tires of the incredulous looks that Boone gives her behind those shades of his. He grimaces at her, a deft expression of emotion that is so rare for him. She smiles, waves her remaining left fingers at him.

“Surprised that’s all they got,” she says.

“Maybe they got a chunk of your brain again,” Boone says as he shakes his head.

Shay laughs, a deep, belly laugh that rings loud, reflecting off the water and the rock walls around them.

“That was a good joke,” Shay says.

“Wasn't a joke.”

They sit in silence for there rest of the ride back to the camp, both unsure of how to pick up a normal conversation. Shay supposes this left the awkward conversation of the ‘after’ still up in the air. Typically when one goes on a suicide mission, they don’t have to come back and deal with the consequences of everything they said or did before.

Shay looks over at Boone, studies his face in the dusty orange light of the setting sun. Her eyes focus in on his lips, and she thinks of how it felt to kiss him. What’s a kiss or two between partners? She leans toward him, taking in the scent of blood and the slight twinge of gunpowder. He is so real next to her, in a time and space when not much feels real, not her lack of fingers, not the dead dictator they leave behind them. None of it feels real besides him.

“You should get some rest,” Boone says, not even turning to look at her. “We have a long day of getting back home tomorrow.”

Shay doesn’t respond to that other than a slight hum. Celebrations could be saved for later. Sleep would come first.

* * *

 

 

Boone is nothing if not efficient. They make it back to the mainland and rest for the night quick enough to be up and awake before sunrise. Shay doesn’t particularly like traveling at night, but Boone’s insistence on getting back to Vegas so quickly silences any arguments that she may have.

As they travel back, Shay tries not to dwell on his incredibly loud silence. She may catch a few words here and there, a spotting of an enemy, a question about water supplies, but nothing beyond basic human communication. It felt like the old days, but, back then, Shay never had to worry about the romantic implications of his virtual radio silence. Perhaps the regret had set in, as it usually did the morning after. In their case, it was the morning after a two-man fueled massacre, but Shay supposes the point still stands. Though, she couldn’t regret any of it at all, can’t regret the way it felt to be with him, even if for just a night.

A little over halfway home, she breaks the silence.

“What’s going on with you Boone?” Shay asks one day as she stops in her tracks in front of him. She wheels around to face him with her hands firmly planted on her hips.

“What do you mean?” He responds, and it takes so much of Shay’s already-depleted strength not to strangle him on the spot.

"I mean you’re being quiet,” she says. “Moreso than usual. Not sure what I did wrong other than kill the guy you’ve wanted dead for lord-knows and lose two fucking fingers.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Boone says with a shake of his head. “Just been thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” Shay asks him, halfway in between dreading the answer and anticipating it.

“Thought all that was gonna be it for us. End of the line.” Boone says. “Imagine my surprise when we both survive. Universe has a funny sense of humor, if you ask me.”

His tone betrays nothing beyond plain indifference.

“Are you mad that you’re still here?” Shay prods further, still unsure whether it’s an answer that she really wants to hear.

Boone steals a glance up at her, and she thinks maybe she can see something behind his glasses. Of course, she couldn’t really see his eyes behind the dark shades, but in all of their travels, there were ways Shay could swear she could see something.

“No,” Boone shrugs. “Just confused.”

“About…?” Shay draws it out, almost like torture. She can almost see him physically squirm.

“What to do next,” Boone says. “What we’re supposed to do after something like that.”

“‘We’?” Shay reiterates.

Boone approaches her slowly as he slings his rifle over his shoulder. Shay stands her ground, feet planted firmly in the dirt, head held high.

“I’m not leaving, if that’s what you’re askin’” Boone’s voice is low, quiet. It rumbles and resonates in Shay’s chest and she blinks.

“Yeah but what about the other night?” Shay drops the bomb before it’s too late to go back. He had to know the question was coming eventually, just perhaps not so soon. In the haze of adrenaline and soon-to-be-death, spending a night with someone you were close with didn’t seem so ridiculous, but having to live with it in the next few days? It might just be a bit more daunting than Shay had realized. They had kissed each other, among other things. Shay bites the inside of her mouth, nervous for whatever may come next. Damn Caeser, confronting her own feelings was arguably the scariest thing she would ever do.

Boone stares at her, reaches a hand out as if to grab her own, but lets it fall back at his side, stuffs it in his pocket. He searches for something on the horizon to his side, not allowing his eyes to return back to her for what seems like an eternity.

“Shay,” He sighs her name out. “I just need some time.”

“Time?” Shay says with a shake of her head. They never had the time, it seemed.

“Please,” Boone says. “It’s all I ask.”

Shay thinks of all that Boone has done for her, has done in her life. Every time a shot from above had saved her from a nasty bite or bullet, every wrapped injury, every extended watch shift because Shay might have overslept on accident. In all of this selflessness, Boone never asked her for anything in return. Even under the guise of watching each other’s backs, it was clear Boone wasn’t asking for more than Shay could give.

“Take all the time you need,” Shay says with a halfhearted smile.

Time, really, is the least she can give him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my initial draft, Shay lost her whole hand here. Lucky girl got off with just a finger or two missing. Thanks so much for reading! Extended to one more chapter, because I didn't feel like I could provide the proper closure in just one chapter. All feedback, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated and loved.


	10. Chapter 10

Boone takes his time, tortuously and slowly. After a week of relative radio silence, Shay begins to think that they’ll just never talk about it again. When the fluster of voices approach her, eager to have their questions about Ceaser and Mr. House and New Vegas’s future answered, the entire concept of her and Boone’s relationship gets sent to the back burner. It is when she notices the healing of her own fingers that she realizes so much time has passed. Had it been a month? More than a month? Every night that she goes to bed she expects a knock on the door, some admission in the dark of night would be better than none at all. Still, she does not receive. 

On one unremarkable night he leaves. Shay only notices when she doesn’t smell coffee in the morning.

She notices the others begin to grow too big for that apartment in the Lucky 38. Veronica is the first to leave, parting with kind words and a dress she had sewn for Shay. Shay accepts the gift with a smile, laughing at the thought of Veronica pricking her fingers every five seconds trying to make this dress that Shay would probably only wear once. Raul and Lily leave next, each off to their own respective adventures. Shay doesn’t pry, but she catches Raul polishing his guns and donning his own regalia before he leaves. Lily parts with grandmotherly advice—a recipe for cookies, or some such. 

As the suite becomes emptier and emptier it becomes clear to Shay what is happening. It is something that she had been expecting for some time, but it still hurts when she wakes up with less cup of coffee to wash. Cass leaves in the night, leaving behind only an old shotgun and a note. ‘Take care, kid. I’m always around if you need me.’ it reads. Shay keeps it in her back pocket like a bible. 

When it is only ED-E, Rex, and Arcade left Shay suddenly feels the impenetrable loneliness that she hadn’t felt since cold nights in Primm. As she sits at dinner one night, Arcade brings it up to her. 

“I’m not going to leave unless you ask,” he says gently. “Are you going to be okay?” 

It was kind of a loaded question. Arguably, Arcade knew Shay better than she knew herself, so she knew exactly what he was referring to. 

“I don’t know,” Shay says with a shrug. She moves the gecko meat on her plate around with a fork, idly wondering why they were still eating that garbage. “How long has it even been?” 

“He’s coming back,” Arcade takes a sip of coffee after saying this, as if to finalize the point. 

“I’m worried that something happened.” Shay says with a frown. Arcade scoffs.

“Oh please,” Arcade waves a hand. “Nothing happens to him unless he lets it happen to him.”

Shay knows that he’s right. Boone was far from careless, a consistently careful man if the snaillike pace of their relationship was any indication of that. She traces the rim of her mug with her finger, watches the way the residue clings to her fingers, and wonders what she had done to offend him so. To send him away and not see him for so long. She hadn’t been away from him in so long, it felt almost wrong, universally incorrect to be separated. 

“I want him to come back,” she says it almost as a whisper, almost wishing that Arcade wouldn’t hear how pathetic she had become. She chews on her bottom lip and looks at him, expecting only a look of pity. Arcade’s face betrays nothing like it. He just looks at her, eyes soft, absent of their usual condescending glare. 

Eventually, she asks Arcade to leave. The guilt of keeping him trapped there had outweighed her desire to not be alone. He had a life, a future, things to do. Keeping him from those things for her own selfishness had felt evil, insidious even. After about a week, the emptiness of the Lucky 38 is too much to bear, so Shay packs her bag, filled to the brim with stimpaks and vodka, harkens Rex, and they are on their way. She’s not sure where to go, so the beginning seems like the best place to return to. 

* * *

 

When she walks into the saloon, Trudy’s voice is the one that greets her first. Shay could hardly believe that this little town, hardly with enough people to fill a whole bar, remembers her. She wonders if they’ve made the connection, Trudy and Sunny. She _was_ that courier on the radio. If they do realize, they don’t say anything, don’t treat her any differently. Shay still has to pay full price for the swill Trudy calls “beer”.

Doc Mitchell had greeted her like an old friend, had given her a quick checkup and a room to stay in. It had been a warmer welcome on behalf of the whole town, than she felt she deserved. These folks’ resources were limited, and here they were wasting them on someone who had slept in a king-sized bed, had enjoyed the spoils of war in a way that she hadn’t even realized. Shay has trouble sleeping for the first few nights, coping with this knowledge. 

She starts to do odd jobs—fixing a leaky pipe here and there, killing a few geckos every once in a while. Shay even begins making supply runs for Chet, grouchy as he was. Shay had a way about navigating grouchy men. 

It was a particularly hot night, the moon hanging low in the sky, and the thick heat sticking to skin like a second layer of skin. Shay returns from a trip to the well, boots covered in the guts of a few unlucky Nightstalkers. Cacophonies of cicadas are the soundtrack to her trip back, the radio seeming too loud, too crass for the peace of the nighttime. The lights of the saloon beckon to her like a pretty song, and when her feet carry her through the door and to a seat, she doesn’t even have to ask as Trudy pours her a drink. 

The drinks come and come, and Shay begins to feel her head spin, though her feet are firmly planted on the stool. Patrons come and go, most ignoring her. Sunny takes a spot next to her for awhile, buying her a drink or two but remaining in relative silence. Shay welcomes it, the silence. It reminds her of a time when somebody else was next to her, quiet, but there. 

Shay is shaken from her thoughts when Trudy pours her a double of vodka. 

“Just beer tonight, Trudy,” Shay shakes her head as she speaks, the words coming out slower than she wishes them to. In her head, she was speaking normally, acting normally, but her body betrays her, as it always would with the drink. 

“Fella over there got it for you,” Trudy motions to a man at the end of the bar as she speaks. Shay scoffs. When was the last time a man bought her a drink?

When she looks down at the end of the bar she understands. 

The first thing she sees is the red beret, a dingy old thing sitting atop Boone’s head. Her eyes travel to his face, watching as he looks over at her. Shay chews on her bottom lip and raises her glass to him. He raises his whiskey glass in return, a cheers to whatever they were. Whatever they had once been. 

She stares back down at the glass, watches the way the vodka ripples as Boone approaches. A cotton-y lump forms at the back her throat, and she bites back whatever is trying to make shape there. Boone takes his seat next to her. 

“Shay,” his voice is the same as it was so many days ago, so many weeks ago. It still stings, still hurts to hear it, and, in its own strange way, it is a comfort. She tries to wrap the word around herself, the way it lilts on his tongue. How long had it been since she had heard it?

She had thought of this moment a thousand times in her head, a thousand different replies, a thousand different remarks. It seemed an easy thing to do in theory, but, in practice, Shay was finding it harder and harder to conjure something worthy of a reunion. 

“How’d you find me?” She asks, finally. Her tone betrays no emotion, trained steadily. She downs the shots of vodka in one go, feels the sickly burn tear at her. God, she had to stop drinking so much. 

“I came back to the Lucky 38 and found no one but your robot.” Boone says, and she can feel his eyes on her. She can’t will herself to look back at him. 

“His name is Yes Man,” Shay retorts. “He doesn’t belong to me.” 

It felt good to snap at him, even if it was something as insignificant as Yes Man’s proper nomenclature. It felt good to feel that. 

“I came here for you,” Boone’s voice suddenly sounds unfamiliar, like another man had possessed his thoughts and his speech. Shay wonders briefly if he had rehearsed this before. “I wanted to talk to you.” 

“You certainly kept me waiting,” Shay says with a scoff. “It’s been what, two months? Forgive me for thinking you had left.” 

“Two months isn’t that long,” Boone argues. 

“Seriously?” She looks at him then, regrets it instantly. He was so close to her, one arm leaning on the bar at the elbow, the other a clenched first against his leg. She can look at him clearly, see the tan on his skin, the smell of the outside mingled with tobacco lingering on his clothes. He had been traveling, just to find her. She watches him pinch the bridge of his nose, watches the way his glasses move upward, giving her a tiny glimpse of the bags beneath his eyes. If only she could just reach out and take his glasses off. 

“Can we go somewhere else?” Boone asks, clearly irritated. Shay looks over at Trudy, who is clearly pretending not to listen to them. The idea of going somewhere alone with him was intimidating, she would be too vulnerable, she would have no one and nothing to hide behind. But the idea of having no audience, being able to lay bare to him all his sins with vigor was as equally appealing to her. 

So they leave together, Shay taking the lead and leaving a respectable distance between the two of them. Her feet bring them to the old gas station up the road, now deserted for many months. The inside of it reeks of stale air, so she leaves the door open. The cicadas chirp their symphonies outside. 

Neither of them sit, but her back is turned away from him, eyes on the horizon. 

“I thought that maybe I had jumped the gun,” Shay begins, and the words start to fall like water from her lips. “That I had assumed too much, and that you didn’t want the same things I wanted. Especially after neither of us died that day.” 

She looks at her hand, at the two stumps where her fingers used to be. 

“I’m—“ Boone cuts himself off, scratches his chin. She still can’t really look at him, but feels him approach. Feels his ever familiar presence just become a little bit closer. “Shay, it’s been so long. I don’t know how to be with someone, anymore.” 

“You think I do?” Shay cranes her neck to sneak a peek at him, and sees that he’s taken the glasses off. 

“I didn't want to let you down,” Boone says with a shrug. She turns to face him, finally gathering up enough courage to look him in the eyes. “Didn’t know how to be there with you. That’s not really my thing.” 

“But you have been before,” she says it quickly, almost as if she was pleading with him. “I mean, you’re not a stranger, Boone. You haven’t been in a long time.” 

He doesn’t say anything, just furrows his brows. Finally she sits and pats the floor in front of her, willing him to sit with her. It feels familiar, urging him to a place that he wasn’t at yet, wondering if he could ever get to that place. 

He sits. 

“Even if it’s just being my friend,” Shay says as she shakes her head. “I don’t want you to gone like that. Even if it means we forget what happened. We can still just be the way we were before it all, right?” 

The question falls flat, and she wishes he could just say something— _anything._

“I don’t…” Boone responds, finally, after what feels like forever. “I don’t have a lot of friends. And I don’t forget things.” 

Shay didn’t know what to say to that, what that even meant to her. How do you respond to that? She chewed on the inside of her cheek. Running away forever was feeling more and more appealing to her as the moments crawled on. 

“So you want to leave?” 

“No,” Boone says. “I’m done leaving.” 

Neither say anything after that, unsure of where to take the conversation next. Shay takes a moment, just to take him all in, to look at him in front of her just in case. His shoulders, broad and sloping, exhausted from carrying the weight of not only his sins, but now her’s too. The way his hands stay completely still, resting against each other, unused to the peace of stillness. She thinks of how easy it would be to reach out, to nestle his hands in her own, to feel the calluses on his fingers, to wrap them up together. 

“I missed you,” she says. “I thought about you all the time.” 

“Yeah?” Boone poses it as a question, but it seems more teasing than anything else, in his own, gruff way. She doesn’t expect him to say it back, that just wouldn’t be in his nature. 

“We can work this all out in time,” Shay says it quietly, almost just to herself. “I just don’t want you to leave again.” 

“I’m not.” 

“So don’t.” Shay says with a frown. “You sure say that a lot for a guy who just ditched for two months.” 

It feels a little too like a scolding, and Shay can’t help but laugh at the irony of it. How many times had Boone scolded her for something small and stupid? And here she was, in his role, once again. 

“I’m sorry, Shay,” he says. “I shouldn’t have left for so long.” 

“Thank you,” Shay brings her knees up to her chin and wraps her arm around herself. It feels childish, especially sitting here across from him like this, but she can’t help it. There was nothing scarier than being vulnerable, not even being on your knees in the dirt with a gun pointed at her head. She would take a thousand Bennys before she would take an emotional conversation with a man who meant the world to her. 

“I owe you more than that,” Boone says it plainly, as if stating a fact. “All you’ve done for me.” 

Shay smiles a small, sad smile. 

“You don’t…” she reaches out, tentative at first, before gently placing a hand on his cheek. She can feel the short layer of stubble beneath her fingers, feels the hardness of his jawbone beneath her fingers. “You don’t owe me anything. Ever.” 

He clenches his jaw, once, twice, before relaxing. 

“I’ll pay you back,” he says, and she feels the way his jaw moves with each word beneath her hand. “I’ll figure it out.” 

“Can you just—can you just stay?” Shay asks, nearly pleading again. “Just for a little while.” 

Boone grabs her hand in his own. 

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I’m with you.” 

They sit there in their little stalemate for longer than Shay can account for. Had it been seconds? Minutes? Hours? She’s not sure that it even matters anymore. To have him there, tangibly in front of her, meant more to her than anything ever combined. She thinks of all the times he has been there, every shitty dinner cooked over a campfire, every quiet moment spent contemplating a next move. He had to know her better than anyone else in the world. The thought alone is incredibly daunting to her, to know that someone else in the world knows you just as well as you know yourself. But, in its own strange way, it was somehow exhilarating to her. He was a partner, a companion, a friend, a source of stability. What more could anyone ask for? All he had to do was stay. 

She leans forward and kisses him on the lips. 

What was once hesitation has now turned to confidence, to comfort. He meets her there, in that quiet place they both know so well by now. He kisses her back, the kiss of a man out of practice, but a kiss all the same. She leans forward, every force holding her back suddenly seeming to disappear. 

In all the places, in all the spaces that Shay had occupied, her favorite would always be here, with him, slowly and gently in the late summer night, in a dilapidated gas station. When he spends the night with her, it is soft and slow, lazy like old lovers. When she wakes up in the morning he is still there, awake but with a hand resting upon her shoulder. She looks at him through sleep-addled eyes. 

“You’re still here,” Shay says with a lazy smile. He looks down at her, eyes filled with something Shay had never seen before. 

“Not going anywhere, Shay,” he says, rubs his thumb over her exposed skin. “I’m done running.” 

“Oh Boone,” Shay snorts and buries her face into the makeshift pillow they had created out of her pack. “what are we doing?” 

He lets out a scoff. 

“Dunno,” He says. “Guess we’ll figure it out.” 

“Guess we will.” Shay says with a smile, and for the first time, she doesn’t feel like she’s lying when she says it. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this little snippet of Boone and Shay's tale. The kudos, comments and feedback mean the world to me. Thank you, again, so much.


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